[governance] Internet humbles UN telecoms agency

[Milton L Mueller]

> From: John Curran [mailto:jcurran at istaff.org]
> >
> > "Member States should endeavour to take necessary measures to prevent
> the propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic communications and
> minimize its impact on international telecommunication services. Member
> States are encouraged to cooperate in that sense."
> 
> It's my contention that some Member States believe these words are
> applicable to the Internet...  I was present during many of these
> debates, and it's clear for example that 5B is targeting spam _on the
> Internet_.

[Milton L Mueller] OMG. Be afraid. Be very afraid. States are being encouraged to "endeavor to take necessary measures to prevent [spam]." 
Can states do that now? Yes. Are there new, specific regulatory powers that are conferred upon the ITU by this provision? No. Are there new international obligations imposed upon free states by unfree states by this provision? No. Are multistakeholder IG institutions affected by this provision? Not in any way I can discern. ICANN is not taken over; the IETF is not affected or destroyed, the RIRs have no new obligations, etc.

So there is NOTHING ELSE in the entire ITRs you can object to? D'ya think its possible that you folks are overreacting a bit?

> The Resolution directed Member States "to elaborate on their respective
> positions on international Internet-related technical, development and
> public-policy issues within the mandate of ITU at various ITU forums..."

[Milton L Mueller] Agreed, this resolution sucks in that respect. But to be realistic, are you saying that states who choose to meet in ITU-sponsored venues cannot talk about the internet, internet governance or internet issues unless this resolution authorizes them to do so? Did they not do that in WSIS 2002-2005, the 2010 Plenipot, and many other ITU meetings? What exactly is new and disastrous here?

BTW, why didn't folks try to amend this resolution to add "IGF" to "ITU Forums". 

> While [the resolution does] not giv[e] the ITU any authority, per se, 

[Milton L Mueller] uh huhhhhhh.

> To be expected, since it was the process issues with that vote which
> made it clear that WCIT had departed from its original mandate as
> described by ITU leadership at the start.

[snip]

> The WCIT moved from seeking consensus among the participants to
> conducting a contentious vote (only open to Member States) to force an
> outcome. This was specifically after they indicated that the WCIT
> conference would operate by consensus as is their typical practice for
> contentious issues.  Countries and sector members participated on that
> basis.

[Milton L Mueller] So, to summarize it was really the process, not the substance, and the problem with the process was that a vote was forced on the African bloc amendment regarding nondiscrimination instead of using consensus. So the only modification to my blog post would be to weaken its stance: people were less worried about the nondiscrimination requirement per se than they were about the lack of consensus behind the amendment, and the breach of faith involved in doing that. Correct?



-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t